


There You Are

by stardropdream



Category: X/1999
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 10:16:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sorata decides that everyone needs to relax more. Though their big day out ends up being lowkey, it's still nice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There You Are

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ August 25, 2011.

“There you are, Kamui! What took you so long?” Sorata booms when Kamui finally emerges from the upstairs, fiddling with the bottom button of the shirt he’s put on.  
  
He flushes and looks a little grumpy, muttering defensively, “I had trouble choosing a shirt.”  
  
Sorata grins and ruffles Kamui’s hair. Kamui looks more put-upon by this but also kind of accepts the gesture as something inevitable when it comes to friendship with Sorata. Yuzuriha is at the door, sitting down as she slips on and starts tying up her shoes.  
  
“Are we ready to go?” Yuzuriha asks, smiling widely.   
  
“Almost,” Sorata says and turns his head, calling into the kitchen. “Yo! Nee-chan! Come on!”   
  
Arashi stops scrubbing a few dishes and lets out a frustrated sigh before shaking her hands free of excess water and wandering towards the entrance between the living area and the kitchen. Before she can speak, though, Sorata looks horrified.  
  
“Nee-chan, you can’t wear your school uniform today!”   
  
She looks down at the school uniform she’d donned, just as she did every day because it was easier. She frowns. She doesn’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with the school uniform. It was comfortable enough. But as she looks up again she does note that her fellow housemates are dressed for the occasion. Sorata had gotten it into his mind that they all needed to have some fun, and if there was one unspoken rule in the house it was that no one tried to talk Sorata down when he got excited.   
  
“Nee-chan,” Sorata whines, still looking slightly scandalized. “As pretty as you look in whatever you wear, you should wear something a little more comfortable! Like us.”  
  
As if to demonstrate the unfathomable comfort of his outfit, he begins to flap the opening of the hooded vest he’d slung over too loose tee-shirt. Arashi can already feel her expression flattening out, unimpressed and yet not quite entirely sure why her cheeks were starting to feel warm. She looks away.   
  
Sorata sighs and even throws his head back as if _this_ could possibly be the most frustrating thing he’d ever encountered. Arashi’s almost insulted. In fact, she thinks she should be insulted and frowns deeply as Sorata walks up to her, reaching out to grab her wrist or do something. She takes a quick step back, giving him a warning glare she thinks must lose its ferocity when she can _feel_ her face heating up.   
  
“Arashi-san,” Yuzuriha says, suddenly standing beside the two of them, her shoes off. She smiles brightly. “I can help you. Come on.”  
  
And she grabs Arashi’s hand without preamble and starts going to the stairs, presumably up to Arashi’s room. Inuki follows behind them. Arashi stares at their hands, hopeless and unsure what to do.   
  
“We’ll be right back!” Yuzuriha calls and then closes Arashi’s door with a decisive click.   
  
Sorata and Kamui stand on the bottom landing, both looking a bit mystified. Sorata recovers first and sighs. “And I thought you were taking forever, Kamui.”  
  
Kamui furrows his brow.   
  
Upstairs, Yuzuriha begins digging through Arashi’s clothes, which on principle Arashi should find terribly rude and invasive but doesn’t mind so much since it’s Yuzuriha and it’s nearly impossible to be angry with her. She straightens up, holding one of the skirts Arashi hasn’t worn in months. She smiles triumphantly and holds it out to Arashi.   
  
Arashi takes it, and mutters a thank you.  
  
“Hmmm,” Yuzuriha says in response. “And now for the shirt.”   
  
She starts digging again, but apparently doesn’t find anything that jumps out of her. What follows are a few boring minutes when even Inuki floats to the bed and seems to fall asleep there. Arashi doesn’t really blame him.   
  
“There!” Yuzuriha says and holds out a white long sleeved shirt. Normal, safe. Arashi is infinitely grateful as she takes it from Yuzuriha. The other girl smiles and waves. “I’ll see you downstairs, Arashi-san.”  
  
She opens the door and leaves to let Arashi get changed. Before the door shuts, though, she hears Sorata say from below, “We can leave soon, then! It’s silly that we’ve been delayed this long just cause Nee-chan will look cute no matter what she wears!”   
  
Arashi blushes up a storm and hates herself for it.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
Sorata’s big plan for their Big Day Out (capitals insisted upon by Sorata) ends up being rather low-key, for which Arashi is very grateful. They end up staying mostly on the expansive campus of the school, but there are a lot of grounds to cover. Yuzuriha insists on stopping for ice cream and Kamui suggests stopping by the university section to see if Subaru wanted to spend time with them, too.   
  
Arashi, much to her chagrin, walks beside Sorata most of the day. For the most part Sorata is distracted with encouraging Inuki to do little flips in the air and whiz around Yuzuriha’s head and distracted with giving hearty shoulder pats to both Kamui and Subaru when they both start looking too morose.   
  
“How about it, Nee-chan?” he asks, sliding back up to her. She looks up at him cautiously. “It’s a pretty day, isn’t it?”   
  
She waits for the comment about how she’s pretty, too, but it doesn’t come—perhaps he’s learned his lesson or perhaps he isn’t interested in making her stomp away in protest. She nods curtly but doesn’t say anything.  
  
Sorata sighs. They keep walking, following behind the other three.   
  
“It’s good that they can relax a little,” Sorata says after a moment.  
  
Arashi looks up at the three ahead of them. She frowns.   
  
He takes her silence and her expression, accurately, as confusion. “They’ve all been a little stressed lately. Understandable. It’ll be good if they can relax, ya know?”   
  
She’s quiet for a moment before, a little embarrassedly, muttering, “I hadn’t realized.”   
  
“That’s okay, Nee-chan,” he says and pats the back of her head in a way that, from anyone else, would be condescending. She jerks her face away all the same. Sorata laughs and continues, “You’re good at other things.”  
  
Arashi thinks that may be stretching it a bit. Everyone else is a clear support to Kamui—Yuzuriha, cheerful and fun. Sorata, exasperating but supportive. Subaru, understanding and quiet like Kamui. She’s quiet, too, but she and Kamui aren’t as close as the others are to him. There isn’t much that she can do that someone else can do better.   
  
“You’re the constant,” Sorata says, as if sensing her inner thoughts. She gives him a deadpanned look. “It’s true,” he argues, grinning, voice thick with his accent. “Believe it or not, but there’s comfort in how strong you are! You’re a foundation.”   
  
Arashi is silent. She feels Sorata has grossly misunderstood something important about herself, something that herself isn’t fully aware of yet and yet, those words strike down deep inside her and twist. Not a pleasant twist, but something painful, something that says _no, that’s wrong._   
  
She frowns, but Sorata interprets it as her modesty and embarrassment at direct praise and just pats her head again. She pushes his hand away, and feels the blush creeping up her neck.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
A few hours later finds the sun hanging lower and lower in the sky. It’s late afternoon and the group takes a rest underneath a tree. Yuzuriha insists on climbing it and insists that Kamui join her. Sorata thinks this is a great idea and promptly joins them. Subaru sits far away, pretending that he isn’t smoking a cigarette because he knows Kamui won’t like it. Arashi settles down beneath the tree, thinking that maybe she could join Subaru but also thinking he’d probably rather be left alone to his thoughts. She leans against the tree trunk and hears the laughter above her. She lifts her head and watches her housemates—her friends—up in the tree. Sorata looks like he’s gotten his head stuck in one of the branches and Yuzuriha is laughing while Kamui smiles, looking happier than he has in days.   
  
A leaf falls down from one of the branches Sorata is trying to shake loose from his head. It lands in her lap and she picks it up, looking at it without really seeing it. She studies it. It’s still green. She can see the veins curling across the leaf, stemming away from the thick vein in the middle. She brushes her thumb along the smooth surface before letting it go and it falls back down to earth.   
  
She watches the clouds, not really thinking on anything and only distantly aware of where everyone else is. Subaru is still on his own, on his second cigarette. By the sounds of the laughter above them, Sorata has gotten free of the tree branch and is now racing Yuzuriha up higher into the tree as Kamui follows, telling them, a little grumpily, that they should be careful.   
  
She thinks back on what Sorata said—that they can relax a little. Now that he’s pointed it out to her, she can agree with him. It’s good that Yuzuriha is laughing. It’s wonderful that Kamui is smiling, the tension in his shoulders sinking away if only a little bit. Arashi thinks they all deserve happiness that, despite it all, she cares about them more than she can ever express comfortably.   
  
“Nee-chan,” Sorata says directly above her head and she looks up in time to see Sorata jumping down from the last branch and landing with a heavy thump beside her. His knees buckle and he flops down beside her, bumping his head on the tree trunk. She looks slightly put-upon as he grasps his head and laughs. “My cool entrance was ruined!”   
  
She rolls her eyes and looks away.   
  
He stands up and takes her hand, pulling her to her feet. “Let’s go for a walk.”   
  
And without waiting for an answer, he starts walking with her. She’s momentarily too taken aback to really react, until she realizes that he’s still holding her hand and she yanks it back.  
  
He laughs—“Rejected again!”—but otherwise doesn’t protest and just falls in step beside her. They walk. She isn’t sure if he has anywhere in mind but she doesn’t really mind the process of walking, even if it’s with him. She looks behind her and she can see Yuzuriha and Inuki in the tree, Kamui slightly above her as he takes in the view.   
  
“They do seem happier,” she says and when she turns to look at Sorata, he’s already watching her, smiling softly. She’s taken aback slightly by the expression.  
  
“And what about you, Nee-chan?” he asks. “Do you feel happier?”   
  
She frowns, but he’s still watching her earnestly and smiling softly. She feels herself starting to blush.   
  
“… Today was nice,” she finally settles on and looks away ahead of her, looking at the path ahead. They’re walking through the patch of trees and some flowers. It’s a small, modest garden by the standards of the rest of the campus, but it’s nice. Not as beautiful as the place where Kotori is buried, but beautiful all the same.   
  
“I’m glad,” Sorata says, cheering up and walking with a little more bounce in his step. He grabs her hand again and she starts in surprise as he stops suddenly. “Nee-chan’s at her prettiest when she’s happy.”  
  
She stares at him with wide eyes, unsure how to respond. He squeezes her hand and releases it before she can jerk it back. He starts walking again and, dumbfounded, she follows after him, blinking a few times. She follows behind him, and when she knows he can’t see, she finds herself cradling her hand against her chest, feeling suddenly far moodier than she had before.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
It’s only once the sun is beginning to set, and they’re heading back towards the other three, that Arashi nudges her elbow against his arm—much more impersonal than touching his arm. He looks at her, confused.  
  
“Are you happy?” she asks.  
  
“So serious when asking!” he says with a laugh, and then he smiles a shit-eating grin. “A cool guy like me is always happy, Nee-chan!”   
  
She scowls.   
  
His expression softens, his smile a touch more genuine. “Today was nice,” he says, repeating her words of earlier. “I’m very happy.”   
  
Arashi nods. It’s an acceptable answer. “Good. The others would worry if you weren’t happy.”  
  
She looks away, not daring to voice that she, too, would worry. He doesn’t need to know that.   
  
“How can I not be happy when I have such pretty people looking out for me?” he asks with a laugh.  
  
She scowls again and speeds up her pace, making him run to catch up with her.


End file.
